Teaching Indigenous perspectives in VCE Art and Studio Arts
Aboriginal language map
For thousands of years, the original inhabitants of Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples occupied the lands with very different boundaries than today, centred on intimate cultural relationships with the land and sea.
The Aboriginal Language Map attempts to represent all of the language or tribal or nation groups of Indigenous people of Australia. It indicates general locations of larger groupings of people which may include smaller groups such as clans, dialects or individual languages in a group. David R Horton is the creator of the Indigenous Language Map. This map is based on language data gathered by Aboriginal Studies Press, AIATSIS and Auslig/Sinclair, Knight, Merz, (1996).(Abc.net.au, 2015)
For more information about the groups of people in a particular region contact the relevant Land Councils.
NOT SUITABLE FOR USE IN NATIVE TITLE AND OTHER LAND CLAIMS.
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Language: Selected statistics
250 Number of Aboriginal languages spoken in Australia before invasion .
600 Number of dialects spoken in Australia before invasion .
60 Number of Aboriginal languages considered 'alive' and in use as a first tongue today .
11% Percentage of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people mainly speaking an Aboriginal language at home in 2008, unchanged from 2002.
75% of these can also speak English .
50% Percentage of Indigenous people in some remote areas of Australia whose speak an Aboriginal language at home.
62% Percentage of Aboriginal adults who identified with a clan, language or tribal group in 2008. Same figure in 2002:
145 Number of Aboriginal languages spoken in Australia today.
110 of them are "critically endangered"
50,000 Number of Aboriginal people whose mother tongue is an Aboriginal language. People who speak Yolngu: 6,000, Arrernte: 3,000, Warlpiri: 3,000.
250 Number of Noongar people who speak Noongar. Total number of Noogar people: 40,000
- (Korff, 2015)
Aboriginal symbols and what they mean
(Mrs. Lundgren's Art Room, 2015)